This is the big one. Once every four years the youth of the world gather for a test of athletic skills. The best sports photographers in the world head out to test their skills while visually reporting the results of the athletic competition to a vast viewing audience. Sports Illustrated assigned ten photographers (Heinz Kluetmeier, Peter Read Miller, John McDonough, Al Tielmans, Robert Beck, John Biever, Bob Rosato, Simon Bruty, Bob Martin and me) to cover the Olympic Games in Beijing, China, starting on August 4, 2008, and running through the 23rd. Nineteen grueling, difficult, joyous, competitive and unmatched days. SI editors Steve Fine, Greg Choat and Nate Gordon were there to coordinate coverage on the ground and get things sorted out so that the staff in New York could edit the entire takes there.

View a full gallery of images from the Beijing Olympics on Bill Frake’s web site.

My assistant Laura Heald came along to work in tandem with me creating images for the magazines. Laura is a talented photographer, skilled technician, and a great friend. Traveling with her makes my life much better.

Preparation

This trip dominated much of our thinking for the 18 months prior. Leading up to the games, every major and some of the minor events we covered would help us generate ideas, refine techniques, and perfect our partnership. When you are running as many as 30 cameras simultaneously, being inside each others heads is very important. By the time we got to the Bird’s Nest, I needed to know how Laura would respond to the various things that experience told me would surely happen, and she needed to know how I would want her to respond to the things we hadn’t discussed—things that would also surely happen and could make or break our coverage.

We spent eleven days in Eugene, Oregon, covering the USTAF Championships. Not only did we get to learn the competition habits, traits and skills of the US athletes we had a chance to work out the kinks in our remote systems. Horse racing’s Triple Crown—the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont stakes had also been valuable learning experiences. Nine days of solid shooting in consistent conditions covering the events that would be our main focus in Beijing was a huge bonus. Laura and I started packing in earnest two weeks before we were wheels up from Jacksonville International Airport.

We thought about everything we might be asked to do. The different sports require different pieces of gear and we wanted to anticipate everything that Steve Fine would need us to do and, at the same time, manage not to overpack.

It was important to keep down the equipment for Chinese customs. Paying for excess baggage was also a concern. Whatever we hauled over there we would have to store in our rooms, and bring it all back.

We checked to see what we could find on location—the big camera companies like Nikon and Canon had service bureaus and would be able to loan us some gear on a short-term basis.

We made lists and revised them, and revised them again. And then started over completely. We studied Internet images of the various stadiums—especially the Bird’s Nest where we would be spending the bulk of our time. We made diagrams. We also looked at the distances between the venues and tried to figure out how we would move our gear from place to place. We also checked with folks on the ground in China about the possibilities of getting lockers in the various venues.

Packing Equipment

In our office we started organizing the gear. Since one of our principal responsibilities would be the finish line at track and field, we were going to need a lot of remote equipment.

Every single piece of gear had to be tagged with bright orange tape with my name on it. When 1000 photographers converge in a single location it’s pretty easy to get things mixed up. The devil is in the details and an hour spent doing this organizing in the comfort of our studio can save many hours in the grueling sun or rain on location.

First we dealt with the camera bodies. We took 26 Nikon D3, (compare prices) (review), and 2 Nikon D300, (compare prices) (review). That also meant locating spare batteries and chargers. We packed 6 of the D3 chargers and 20 extra batteries—the batteries have an incredible life per charge, but the Olympics is not the place to run out of power.

20 of the D3 bodies were packed in two 1632 Pelican cases—10 each with plenty of high density foam to protect them. We packed the spare chargers and the extra batteries into our “auxiliary” case. The remaining six D3s and the 2 D300s went into carry-on bags.

We took a wide array of Nikon lenses:

• three TC 1.4 teleconverters
• one 14mm f/2.8,
• one 15mm f/2.8
• three 14-24 f/2.8
• two 24-70mm f/2.8
• three 70-200mm f/2.8
• three 200mm f/2
• three 300mm f/2.8
• three 300mm f/4
• two 400mm f/2.8
• one 600mm f/4

The various glass was packed in 1632 Pelican Cases specially cut to protect them.

The two 400s went in one 1632 Pelican case. The three 200 f/2s in another 1632 Pelican. And the three 300 f/2.8s in a third 1632 Pelican. The 70-200s and some of the shorter zooms went in a fourth 1632 Pelican. The short glass was packed into carryon bags along with our handheld camera bodies.

Laura uses the Kata DR-467 backpack. She packed several lenses, personal items and her 15 ” MacBook Pro. She also took a Pelican roller case on board. It was loaded with lenses, and the D300s.

I carry the Kata RL-302, a slightly larger backpack. I put my 17” MacBook Pro, personal items, a couple of bodies and a selection of chargers including the mag seat adapter for the laptop, CF cards, card readers, business cards, various writing utensils, my iPod, and two different types of earphones. I also took a Pelican roller case on board. It was loaded with lenses and the D3s.

We normally use the Lightware Medium format case with the Lightwalker wheels attached, but for this trip we wanted the Pelicans, which although smaller are great to use as stools, and shooting platforms. Plus we knew we would get caught out in the rain a few times and having the waterproof cases would be a huge asset.

Personal items on a trip of this scale and importance include various medicines—both over-the-counter and prescription medications, ear plugs, sun screen, bug repellant, Band-Aids, extra toothbrushes, hard candy and some extra hand soap. All of these things can easily be found once you get there, but you really don’t have time to go shopping. Getting our customs clearance forms filled out, sent to New York to be cleared by the Chinese embassy, and returned to us for entry into China was not a simple task either. Multiple copies had to be filled out and filed. Changing serial numbers—as we swapped out cameras, computers, etc—made things an interesting challenge as well.

Every one of our cases is numbered on the outside in big easy to read numbers. We inventory the cases and make lists on the computer of exactly what is contained in each case. That’s key if something gets lost, and also helps us once we get on location to know which case to bring with us.

Another good thing to do is to print out the inventory list and attach it to the inside lid of the case—when you have this much equipment you want to be able to find it easily, and efficiently. Also we put laminated labels with my name, cell phone and destination address on the inside of the case, and also tape a large one to the outside of each case. If the luggage tag comes off it’s easy for the airline to find us. We also put extra tie wraps in a baggie taped to the inside lid of the case with a note to TSA asking them to reseal any in case they have to open for inspection. Not much security but it helps make sure the cases don’t spill open and our gear isn’t getting wet, or worse yet rolling around loose on a baggage carousel.

We travel with a lot of remote gear. We took 20 Manfrotto 468MGRC4 Hydrostatic Ball Heads. We took custom-made baseplates created by Louisville Courier Journal photo editor Pat McDonough to mount them to. The best part of the pre-Olympic packing orgy was letting my then 7-year-old daughter Havana give the baseplates two fresh coats of black paint. We also packed 10 Manfrotto 244 Variable Friction Magic Arm with Camera Brackets, and a half a dozen extra camera brackets. 20 635 – Quick-Action Super Clamps.

In the case with the ballheads and magic arms we packed three Gitzo monopods. One Gitzo GM5561T Traveler 6x Carbon Fiber Monopod and two of the taller Gitzo 6x monopods. We packed the Gitzo tripod to support the strip camera.

The day finally came for Laura and I to fill my truck with the cases we had spent weeks and countless hours packing and go to the airport for the long trek to Beijing. We had managed to pack everything we needed into eight cases with two carry-ons each. Since we are both platinums on Delta, that left us with only two excess bags. For a trip this long and grueling that was a difficult task. We flew from Jacksonville International Airport to the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. From there we flew a 14-hour flight to Seoul, Korea. We had a three hour layover there before our final flight to Beijing.

Arriving in Beijing

Arriving in the Beijing airport was something we had been anticipating for weeks. Getting in and out can take hours of customs and negotiations. Our experience was quite the opposite. We picked up all eight of our bags, went through customs and received our Olympic credentials in less than an hour. The people were gracious and helpful. Customs was simple and painless. Our team from Sports Illustrated China picked us up at the airport with drivers for all the photographers and a moving truck for our gear. The trip was off to a great start. We checked into our suite at the Foreign Experts Hotel. Nice, clean well laid out space. Two bedrooms, big living room, bath, balcony and a kitchen. Home for the next 23 days. Best of all a washer/dryer. You can’t imagine how excited we were for this, no sending out clothes at large expense and no idea when they would come back—in 1996 at the Olympics in Atlanta my then assistant Jason Burfield sent out his clothes the fifth day and didn’t see them again for the duration of the games.

Unfortunately it wasn’t until after we had done a load of laundry including our photo vests—which are also part of the credential/access situation did we realize that the dryer and the balcony were actually one in the same, and with the heavy rain coming down we had clean but very wet clothes, which made for quite an unpleasant day.

Getting Passes and Creds at the Olympics

Security was wonderfully organized. Once you went through the initial mag and bag check that was it unless you left the secured Olympic zone. This made it incredibly easy for us since our hotel had a mag and bag as you exited the building to catch the bus. Of all the games I have been too this was easily the best system. It was something we had been very concerned about before the Olympics started. Individual checks at all of the venues means big lines, a lot of confusion and would add hours to already brutally long days.

Our first stop was at the MPC (Main Press Center) and SI’s offices. Phil Jache and Mike had the place wired—literally and figuratively. They gave us packets of information, instructions, and provided directions to ease the acclimation process. Since all of the takes were being edited in New York, the transmission system in Beijing had to be flawless. All of our cards had to get from the venues to the office so that they could be imported and the images sent digitally to the 31st floor of the Time, Inc. building where SI’s photo editors went through every frame, pulling selects, writing captions, and building shows so that the magazine could be assembled and designed.

At the Kodak Press center we had to pick up a photographer bib. A khaki colored photo vest with a number on the back is given to each accredited photographer and combines with the actual laminated credential to allow access to Olympic venues. One of my favorite moments at these Games occurred when Laura and I went to the credential desk. A tiny Chinese woman looked up at me and asked what size vest I would like. I suggested that a XXL would be appropriate. She said, “Oh no! A large will be fine, maybe too loose.” I insisted and she finally relented and handed me a too short XXL. Slipping it on my 6’4” 200 pound frame—svelte I think—was a challenge. Her eyes open wide and she exclaimed, “WOW. You are really big!” Her face and tone made me laugh, and I thought, Just wait until you see my friends.

Around the corner at the Nikon camera depot, Bill Pekela greeted us warmly. Bill and the rest of the Nikon team were a huge bonus. Not only did they clean and check our equipment along with doing minor repairs, they supplied knowledge about the new gear and made sure that we had what we needed to get the job done.

This was essential to me. One of my cases didn’t make it from Jacksonville to Beijing—it wasn’t lost, it just didn’t get out of the United States with me, and trying to get it shipped in after the fact was going to be a monumental task. The case contained my 600 f/4 Nikkor, and a few short zooms. The zooms I could work without, it wouldn’t be easy, but I could figure it out. The 600 on the other hand is one of the pieces of equipment I depend on most. Bill just put his arm on my shoulder, smiled, and told me not to worry. If it didn’t get there he’d make sure I had one for the duration of the games.

That was the first, but not the last time he stepped up huge. When Laura unpacked our 400s, she found that one had been badly damaged in transit. We had two with us, but like the 600 it is one of the most critical pieces of equipment for a sports photographer and I need one just to use on remotes at Track and Field.

I took the lens to Bill and showed him what had happened. Somewhere along the line the lens had suffered some impact damage and the internal focusing mechanism had been badly hurt to the point where the lens wouldn’t even focus manually. He took the broken lens, and loaned us his 400 until ours could be repaired. Another crisis averted through his good offices.

One of the wonderful things about working on a staff as deep and talented as the one at Sports Illustrated—in addition to the camaraderie, photographic and journalistic brilliance and institutional knowledge—is the generosity of the other photographers.

Laura mentioned the missing zooms to Heinz Kluetmeier. Heinz had talked to me right before leaving New York and asked if there was anything I needed him to bring for me from there. He had a little room in one of his dozen cases and was making sure I hadn’t missed anything. I had asked if he had another 70-200 I could use. So when Laura shared the tale of the missing case with him in Beijing he just grinned at her and produced two extra 70-200s. The one I asked for, and a spare he brought just in case one wasn’t going to cut it.

Heinz is the reason I work the way I do. He is 66 years old and works every day. He is one of the world’s great photographers and gentlemen. He made the defining image of these games.

Trained at Dartmouth and Northwestern as an engineer, Heinz brought me to the magazine when he was Director of Photography and patiently—okay, not really that patiently, taught me how to use technology and planning to free me up to do be creative while making sure that nothing got past me at the finish line.

Apple was also there in force. Aperture gurus Martin Gisborne, Joe Schorr and Chris Gonzalez provided technical support and a bevy of machines for accredited photographers to use in the Kodak Photo center. This was particularly helpful to me because I could do email and upload images on trips to the MPC while staying out of our office, which wasn’t big enough for all of the photographers and assistants to congregate between assignments. Since all of the bus routes funneled through the the transportation center adjacent to the MPC we were there frequently.

We had three days to get acclimated to China. This was not my first trip to Beijing, but it was Laura’s so we decided to spend two days before it got crazy and just visit some of the classic spots. We went to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and a wonderful series of art galleries—and there we not only found a terrific photo gallery but an excellent photo book store where we bought copies of Robert Frank’s The Americans with Chinese titles and captions to take home to friends. We bought art from students and pottery from local artisans.

There were a lot of concerns before we got to China about rules and regulations, Internet restrictions and air quality. Relative to rules and regulations we were treated perfectly. I was not covering any news—only sports and there were no unusual things about the way they handled our access. Similarly I had no trouble finding anything I wanted online—again I wasn’t trying to push the limits. I wanted to read blogs by the other photographers, check email and keep abreast of news from home and I had no issues doing any of that. The air was heavy. Many days it looked like we were in a thick fog, but it didn’t smell, and I didn’t experience any difficulty breathing.

The security and venue workers were beyond hospitable. I was struggling up the stairs at the fencing venue with two cases each weighing about 60 pounds, with a 400 f/2.8 over one shoulder and a 300 f/2.8 over the other when all of a sudden one case in my left hand went away. Stunned I looked up to see a Red Army soldier moving rapidly to the top carrying my case. He put it down, nodded at me and returned quickly to his post. A simple gesture but one that meant so much.

This was the case in nearly every venue. The photo managers worked hard to get us in the right spaces at the right times. They provided translation, and helpful conversation. Many of the volunteers took time to learn our names, and ask questions about home and family. Leaving the Table Tennis venue in an unexpected rain we were scurrying to the bus when our host raced after us handing us brightly colored ponchos and offered the use of an umbrella to get to the transportation area.

The bus system worked perfectly, after we figured it out. It only failed us once. Early in the games there was a problem with scheduling and we didn’t have any way to get from the National Stadium to the hall where they were holding Team Handball. (And if you can figure out the rules to this game you need to let me know. I’ve been studying on it for some years now and I’m still not exactly sure when you have to dribble and/or pass.) One long march from the Bird’s Nest to the team handball venue, which looked like two blocks on the map, but was actually over a mile in the hot, humid conditions. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we weren’t carrying 90 pounds of camera gear between us.

The first week of the games, Steve Fine assigned me to various sports, asking if there was anything that was important to me, knowing that for the final 11 days I would be tethered to the finish line at track—basically leaving only to go to the start of the marathons, hustling back for the finish. The only thing I really wanted was table tennis. I love the game, it’s China’s national sport, and there is an certain historical context for Americans and Chinese based around political developments fostered by competition in the sport between our countries. Table Tennis, Women’s Basketball, Shooting, Women’s Weightlifting, Women’s Field Hockey, Team Handball and Fencing kept us busy for the first few days of the Olympics.

The Beginning of the Olympics

And then, as Steve said, it was time to let my Olympics begin. My old friend Paul Matthews who ran the photo operations in Sydney and Athens smiled broadly and thrust his huge paw out in greeting. Paul is a big, tough, funny, smart Australian and he had operations well in hand. Working with folks like Paul makes things go so much better. No-nonsense, well-organized and experienced Paul handled things fairly, quickly and decisively. He had made some last minute changes to the photo areas and helped negotiate equitable positions and restrictions with the host broadcaster. Paul has one of the toughest jobs at the Olympics because Track and Field, along with basketball, gymnastics and swimming are the marquee sports, with Track normally being king.

Covering Track

Access at Track is multi-tiered. There are tribunes, which are open to all credentialed photographers. There is a moat which runs along the side of the actual track surface. Certain agencies are granted special access to reserved positions in the moat, most notably the coveted low head-on spots. Twenty four organizations were in the head-on area, and 12 of those had reserved front row spots. The infield is tightly controlled as well with a limited number of photographers being allowed to work out on the field of play. Shooting in the infield required a special bib.

A typical day for us covering track would be to roll out of bed at 5:00am, pull all of the batteries off their chargers, look at the weather forecast, quickly check email to make sure that nothing had changed during our three hours of sleep, grab some caffeine, and head down the bus with our handheld cameras and gear—usually 4 D3s, a 14-24, 24-70, 200 f/2.0 and a 400 f/2.8. This would allow us to do basic coverage of most anything that happened.

After going through the mag and bag at the hotel we would ride the bus to the MPC. We got off there and went to our office in the MPC to retrieve our cards from the previous day. Then it was a twenty minute walk to the Bird’s Nest. Once we were in the stadium we’d go to the lockers and grab a few pieces of remote gear. I’d head down to my position and Laura would find more caffeine, a few snacks, and then assemble the gear for the evenings events.

To get from the lockers to my position required going through a maze of cables, wires, overhangs, and going up and down about 80 stairs. Not bad normally, it gets a little trickier when you are hot, tired, exhausted and hauling too much heavy gear.

After the morning session ended there would be a break of several hours before things started back up in the evening. Laura and I would use that time to get organized, find food, check email, and set up for the nights races.

In the mornings—heats—we would use less equipment. The heats are important but that’s not normally where records and drama happen. We put the remotes in place together. We have a written plan of which cameras and which lens are placed on which ballhead and plate combination and where they need to be positioned. Every one is numbered.

After we assembled the camera/body/ball head/ remote plate/ remote connector combinations we would place them where we needed them. Then Laura would go out on the track and I would prefocus the cameras, taping the focus ring in place.

For each race I would have to realign and refocus some of the remotes. Each race required different positioning and amount of coverage. We did lists of which cameras to fire on which heats. It’s better to do this well in advance. When things start happening quickly, being able to refer to a written plan keeps me from making mistakes. Until you have been on the finish line of a major event like the Olympics you can’t imagine the pressure, the confusion, the tension, and the myriad number of things that can go wrong in a millisecond. For me that means preparation and back up.

I had finish line responsibility for the magazine. That meant being on the finish line for every heat of every race every day. Walk away at the wrong time and you’ll miss a world record or some incredible moment. You just can’t let that happen.

We were working in a four-foot deep moat. I had a head-on position in the front row dead-on lane four Most of the time Laura was overhead in the tribune—firing my remotes either with a pocket wizard, or a hard wire. For the finals we always used the hard wire. Steve Fine graciously helped us fire the remotes on a number of finals as well—he’s done that for me for every Olympics since Barcelona.

For the distance races I used three remotes. Two high, and one low. The high remotes were slightly angled from lane 4 to lane 1. The low remote was normally a Nikon D3 with a 70-200 f/2.8 attached. It was positioned on a floor plate head on to lane 1.

For the sprints and the hurdles things changed. For the men’s and women’s 100 meter finals for example I used 25 Nikon D3s on remote and 1 in my hand. I blanketed the finish line area. I put cameras as low as possible, and as high as I could. I used mostly telephotos or medium length zooms but I also put 2 Nikkor 24-70 lenses down for more of a vista view.

All of the cameras were hard wired for the finals. Two lines, one for the finish, and one for reaction. I used my handheld to track the runners as they approached the finish. Sometimes I tied the remotes into the hand held, sometimes I had them on a timer, sometimes on a foot pedal. As soon as the race finished we quickly pulled the cards from the cameras and put them in bags to be sent back to the MPC and SI’s offices so that they could be quickly downloaded and then uploaded to NYC. There is a shuttle system to get cards from the venues to the MPC but we normally bypass that and run the cards ourselves when the deadline is tight. Otherwise we would simply take the cards back to the office at the end of the session and drop them off. The wire services (AP, Reuters, Getty, EPA, AFP) are on a much tighter deadline and the photographers from those agencies scramble as soon as a heat is over to pull cards and upload images to their editors—usually on site—using hard wired telephone lines. The scene in the moat is of carefully controlled chaos. Photographers racing up and down the front of the moat to pull cards from cameras, others working frantically on their computers editing, captioning and filing images. There are cables and cameras everywhere, photographers stepping over and around hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gear apparently randomly piled all over the floor. But in spite of what appears to be very unorganized nothing gets lost, few things get broken, and the flow of images is unbelievable. Photographers standing shoulder to shoulder with each other make photographs that are radically different, insightful and wonderful.

There is an unmatched sense of camaraderie there as well. When there is a problem people scramble to help offering gear, advice and physical assistance.

End of the Games

The end of the Beijing games was bitter sweet. We were physically and mentally exhausted from three weeks of intense labor and emotion. We had seen world records set, dreams come true and hearts break. We saw athletes exceed under the pressure of a gold medal and fail under the strain of competition. For Laura and I, minus a mishap here and there, the Olympics were essentially terrific. We made every picture we were asked to make and took a few for ourselves along the way.

We left the morning after the closing ceremonies. We had a quick breakfast with SI editors and photographers and shared a long good-bye hug with Amelia Wang, our fixer from SI China who had become a close friend over our three week stay. The bus ride was quiet, partly because of exhaustion, partly because we were each saying a silent goodbye to the city that had so graciously hosted us.

More

• Bill’s member page
• Bill’s gallery page
• www.billfrakes.com
• Sports Illustrated
• Photo.net Sports Photography forum

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